Falling Off Air (6 page)

“Oh.” I hung my head, reluctant to bring it all back. For a moment there I had been enjoying the pleasure of meeting Suzette.
“There's nothing really to tell. It was just awful.”

“Well, I mean, you saw her fall, right, so what did you see?”

I gazed at her. Suzette, Jane, myself—we all spend our lives with images. It's how we think.

“I saw her falling through the air, fast, and landing and crumpling.” I shrugged. “It was over in an instant.”

“Was there anyone else there?” Suzette's eyes were fixed on my face, mesmerized.

Always the same questions, I thought. Why was it that no one else in the world seemed to consider that Paula Carmichael might
have committed suicide.

“I didn't see anyone.”

Suzette nodded, thinking.

“But you heard arguments in the street.”

“That's getting so blown out of proportion,” I objected. “There was some row going on in the early evening. Everyone heard
it, they must have. Then I may have heard voices again around the time she died, and then again I may not have. There was
a storm, it was noisy, it was probably my imagination.”

Suzette caught my tone of exasperation.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to interrogate you.” She backed off. “It's just that I knew her slightly, so it's … well, it's just
all rather strange …”

“I didn't realize you knew her.”

“Only slightly,” she repeated, and sniffed. In Suzette's vocabulary that small, controlled sniff meant that she did not intend
to expand on this.

“You sound as though you didn't like her.” I was surprised. “I thought everyone loved her.”

“Including Paula,” Suzette said drily. She stopped for a moment, then changed the subject. “Look, I'm going to have to run
because I have an appointment, but I was going to ring you anyway. I heard you're thinking of going back to work, and I wondered
whether you'd be interested in joining me at Paradigm.”

I stared, and she grinned at me, delighted at my surprise.

“We've had some teething problems, mostly financial, but I really believe they're over now, and I can't think of anyone I'd
rather work with.”

“It's certainly worth thinking about.” I struggled for words.

“So think about it. Let me see, how about more food, let's say a working lunch on Monday?”

“Okay,” I said slowly.

“And look,” Suzette said, “I know things are tough. If you need anything, just let me know. Babysitting, whatever.”

“Right,” I said, smiling at the earnest look on Suzette's face. “Thanks,”

A
FTER Suzette left, I went and bought myself some makeup and a potion that promised me shiny hair. I retired to the washroom
to try to make myself presentable. Then I did Jane's interview for her. I kept it as low-key as possible, no dramatics. After
I came out of the studio Jane forced a smile and told me it was “Great, perfect, just what we needed,” but I can smell Corporation
bullshit a mile off and I knew she was disappointed. With any luck, I thought, I would end up on the cutting-room floor. Still,
I spent the rest of the day feeling sick at myself, as if I'd been filming pornography, not an interview for a news analysis
program. I should have just taken what I had seen the night before and wrapped it up and locked it away in my head. What good
did recycled death ever do anyone?

By the time I'd got home from the Corporation there was a thin but steady stream of people coming by to take a look at where
Paula Carmichael had fallen. There were journalists staking out the Carmichael house too, and police cars coming and going.
I was glad to get to my front door unaccosted.

My mother opened the door to me before I had a chance to get my keys out.

“We've been looking out the window watching for you,” she explained. “The children think all the activity is great fun.”

Sure enough, the twins were having the time of their lives. Ma had set up their high chairs so they had a good view of the
street. She'd provided them with drinks and biscuits, a baby version of dinner theater. While the babies were busy rubbernecking,
she'd been tidying and vacuuming. My father abandoned Ma, my two sisters, and me when I was little. Somehow she brought the
three of us up on nothing but debts—because that was what my father left us with—and completed a law degree in the bargain.
My mother could write the book on multitasking.

“They're all ghouls,” I said, as another car double-parked outside and a couple of middle-aged women got out.

“Not at all,” Ma said. “Look what they're doing.”

As she spoke, one of the women reached back inside and emerged with a bouquet of white roses. The two of them pushed their
way through to the Carmichael house, and as the way cleared for them I saw that the pavement was now scattered with flowers
and cards. The street was rapidly becoming a shrine.

“My God,” I murmured, “just like Princess Diana.”

“People liked Paula Carmichael,” Ma said sadly. “They respected her and she respected them. She was never smug. Now everyone's
heartbroken. Look at the policeman, even he's sad. Why would she do that?”

Fresh from the newsroom it was a new perspective for me to look at how sad the policeman looked, but my mother was right.

“It's so depressing,” my mother said in a low voice. “If she couldn't bear to live, how can any of us?”

I watched for a few more moments, turned away, then turned back again. This house was so small, I couldn't retreat to a tower
and pretend that nothing was happening outside. For a good while yet the pavement outside the Carmichael house would be the
arena and my house would be the grandstand.

“I've got to get out of here,” I muttered.

“I'm at Lorna's this evening,” she said wearily, “but come and have dinner with us.”

And so it came to pass that my mother cooked us dinner. Which consisted of pouring drinks all around and ordering Indian takeout.
The twins shared a plain naan, mashed chicken korma, and some spinach. Once they were asleep on the guest-room bed breathing
garlicky little snores we reheated the rest. Ma spooned out three portions, one for me, one for her, one for Lorna.

“Lorna's tired,” she said, handing me Lorna's plate. “I think she'll stay in her room.”

Lorna's room is the most peaceful place I know. That night she had chamber music playing softly and the lights were dimmed.
She glanced over as I entered, but she said nothing. She was lying on her bed. By this point in the day she is usually exhausted,
but even when she sleeps the quality of her rest is poor.

“You don't feel like joining us?” I asked gently. She smiled and shook her head of red-gold curls, gesturing that I should
leave her plate on the table by her bed.

“Busy day,” she said softly. Her voice was a contralto, surprisingly vibrant coming from her weary body.

Often, we would eat together. Once the most sociable of people, Lorna's instinct was still to seek out human contact even
if it drained her of the last ounce of energy, which it always did. A year earlier, when the CFS was at its worst, I sometimes
had to carry her to bed, and when I did I always remembered my mother scolding a seven-year-old Lorna for picking me up, three
years younger, three years smaller, and swinging me around and then dropping me hard on the floor.

There was a time when I was jealous of Lorna. She was a bossy older sister, overzealous at school but still the most popular
girl in the class, excelling at hockey and tennis. When she was seventeen I was fourteen, bookish and arty and hopeless at
sports. I looked on bewildered as my girlfriends fought for the favor of a smile from Lorna and the boys followed her around
like puppies. From there she disappeared to Cambridge, and the stories of her achievements both academic and otherwise came
to me secondhand. There was no way I could even hope to step into her shoes at school, but at least I could get on with my
life outside the shadow cast by her sun.

Now Lorna has chronic fatigue syndrome. Even medical experts refer to it as an illness “of ambiguous status and uncertain
cause.” They fight a fierce clan war over its name. It's also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, chronic Epstein-Barr, and
atypical poliomyelitis, even yuppie flu—which, if it wasn't so derogatory, sort of fitted Lorna. Cambridge led to a fast-track
career in merchant banking, and now she had the money to move on from hockey to more exotic activities. It was on a cycling
holiday in Nepal that the trouble started. A day into the expedition she was struck down by a fever, some mysterious virus
never identified, but quite probably something she had picked up in Britain before she left. She spent two days on her camp
bed in a tent, forcing the fever down with Panadol, then tried to plow on. It wasn't like her to admit defeat, although it
is true that until then most things in her life had come with relative ease. Anyway, this time she found herself unable to
continue. She returned home and was adamant that this was just a temporary setback.

The exhaustion that she insisted would not last long went on for months. A year later, one day after she resigned from her
job, she was diagnosed with CFS.

No one could tell us why it had happened. Lorna's case did not fit any one of the medical models perfectly. It is possible
that CFS involves a link between physical and psychological factors, but the nature of that link, if it exists at all, is
still a matter for speculation. CFS affects all socioeconomic and ethnic groups, we were told, is more common in women than
men, with a typical onset between the ages of twenty and forty. All of which meant little to Lorna, who at the worst of it
was tortured by sleeplessness, an excruciating sensitivity to noise, and was racked by muscle pain. She would try to get out
of bed and get only as far as the door before collapsing.

There is no cure, and we don't know if or when it will go. Experts have difficulty with any sort of prognosis because there
have been few long-term studies. However, Lorna is better than she was, her progress marked in small steps back toward independence.
She has a tendency to rush at things, so when she does feel better she pushes herself to the limit, and then profound exhaustion
overwhelms her again. Still, her progress, even if she takes one step backward for every two forward, gives us hope that one
day this strange affliction will leave her altogether.

I put the tray down and bent to kiss Lorna's forehead. Her huge green eyes looked up at me. They smiled that sad dark smile
that had been hers since the dazzle left her. Those eyes haunted me.

I busied myself drawing the curtains. When she was tired like this, she had no energy to do anything for herself. It was already
dark outside and God knows it would depress even the happiest soul to stare out into the night for hours on end. She hauled
herself into a sitting position, and I fixed the table over her so that she could eat comfortably. She began to pick at her
food and I sat down in the armchair next to her bed.

I tried to make a couple of visits a week. It tended to be in the evening, by which time she was usually exhausted. I would
sit with her for a while, not saying much—chatter tires her at the end of the day—but it would be companionable all the same.
Since the birth of the twins I had often come frazzled into this room, near the end of my tether. Despite the awfulness of
Lorna's condition the enforced tranquillity had given me a few moments of respite. Once I had dozed off in that armchair and
my mother had come to find me an hour later, only to discover me fast asleep and Lorna lying in bed watching over me.

Tonight, though, I couldn't get ahold of the tranquillity. I was frustrated. I wanted the old talkative Lorna back, not this
silence. I wanted the Lorna who would regale me with her victories, and who would listen to my troubles with at least an attempt
at sympathy, then make me laugh, felling me with some hilarious observation that was always spot on. Today there were things
I'd have liked to get off my chest, like how it feels to watch someone plunge to their death, and how grotty I felt about
doing Jane's television interview, but depression hovers over Lorna. It has lifted somewhat with the improvement in her symptoms,
but nevertheless suicide didn't seem to be a good late-night topic of conversation. What I had to say was not calculated to
soothe, so I kept quiet. Nevertheless, Lorna seemed to have sensed that something was wrong. She had stopped eating and was
looking at me.

It nearly burst out of me then. The words were there waiting, a mouthful of poison ready to be spewed. For God's sake, snap
out of it, Lorna. Pull yourself together!

I bit it back.

“I'll see you later, my food's getting cold,” I muttered, standing and leaning over to kiss her again. Then I made for the
door. I felt the full force of Lorna's eyes on my back. Lorna's my big sister and I've always been scared of her.